The Agony of a Capitals Fan

Sports aren't as important as life. It just feels like it sometimes. It can be hard to find an aspect of life that we can pour ourselves into, that can bind us together, and that makes us feel on the level that sports can, but with the knowledge in the back of our heads that it doesn't matter. We will wake up tomorrow, maybe with a hole in our television set and a beer can embedded in the drywall, but still, we will wake up. In the end, for the fans, for us, it is just a game.

But, damn it, it's hard to remember that sometimes.

There's not much that brings this into stark relief better than a playoff hockey game, and when it's the seventh game, even better. Except if your team is playing. If your team is playing, like mine was last night, ah, well then, the whole thing is agonizing. It was game 7 between the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals. It was beyond agonizing, and it was all too fast.

The puck moves so quickly, from one player to another, from one side of the ice to the other, that even in my most intensely focused state, only my eyes can keep up. My heart is perpetually and woefully behind. I'm never wholly prepared for what happens because there is no buildup. Goals happen like car accidents. One minute you're driving along minding your own business. That same minute some hockey player is standing calmly behind his own net with the puck on his stick. There's not a care anywhere. Everything is fine. Then you cross an intersection and there's a loud bang and that's all you remember.

When it happens for your team it can be exhilarating. When it happens to your team it is soul destroying. Last night, for Rangers fans, it was the former. For Capitals fans, like myself, it was the latter. When the Capitals scored the first goal of the game, I was sitting on my porch. The houses are close together in my neighborhood so I know no neighbor was safe from the yelp that shot out of me. I yelped in excitement and happiness, but mostly shock when Alex Ovechkin took a blind pass from Marcus Johansson skating in front of the Rangers net and beat Henrik Lundqvist with a shot just under the bar. You never see it coming. I didn't see it coming. My neighbors never saw it coming.

The other emotion that I haven't touched on, but that is perhaps the most prevalent in any fan's heart during a playoff hockey game is dread. You just know that that odd man rush is going to lead to a goal, that the puck is going to pop out of that cycle in the corner and right onto the other team's stick. You can feel it. Every rush is potential doom, every faceoff in the defensive zone is instant heartbreak lurking. Dread is a constant emotion, even loitering around the side of the convenience store during intermission, staring at you over a preposterously sized diet soda. 'When the next period starts, I'll be there.' I know, you jerk, I know.

The Capitals and Rangers played as even a series as any two sports teams can play. All seven games were decided by a single goal. The seventh game went into overtime. It doesn't get much closer than that. The difference in the series was… actually, I have no idea. Probably a puck that wasn't lofted quite enough to get over Lundqvist's pads, or a broken play that broke just right enough for New York. The series featured two overtime games and the Rangers won both. This is writing so you can't see, but I have my arms up in the air. What you gonna do?

My team played good hockey. They easily could have won. There are no moral victories in sports. They are a zero-sum game. You win or you lose and when you lose you're a loser and you're out. Except we're too smart for that crap. In sports as in life there are shades of grey, even when the game ends and the scoreboard says one thing, there are times when we know differently.

The Capitals losing game seven in overtime hurts. It happened hours ago and I can still feel it in my stomach. But there is hope because there is next year and the excitement and dizziness and happiness and all the other emotions that will come from being alive and following my stupid team. Because we're doing this again, dammit. It's sports. I wouldn't have it any other way.